If you’ve visited the product selection at Finn & Thatcher or finnandthatcher.com you can see that we offer classic, simple and stylish choices and that our aim is to preserve rather than rush childhood. I came to this philosophy for far more than capitalistic reasons. In fact, in terms of business, and today’s world of video games, trendy culture and electronics, my philosophical view and business plan may seem a bit counterintuitive—at least up till now. I believe this is changing, as is our society, and all for the better.
I’ve chosen to offer classic and creative toys, clothes, books, baby goods and decor because that’s what I want for my own children and its what I hear my friends, acquaintances and even strangers say they want as well. And we’re not just saying it, we’re living it, and we’re doing so not as a select or elite group, not as members of a red or blue America pitted against one another, but as parents of all stripes who stand with one another to reclaim a meaningful, creative simplicity in our family lives and in the lives of our children.
One thing many of us notice is that to preserve childhood is not as easy as it sounds, even for the most dedicated parents. Why is that? In the main there seems to be a lack of societal and consumer support, even where there are otherwise the best of intentions.
Essentially we’re in a society that sends us mixed messages.
On one hand we hear that kids need ever more stimulation starting from babyhood if not in utero. We’re told to get our kids engaged in more activities, more do, do, do, more go, go, go in order to “compete” or to prepare for future challenges. We’re told of ways to keep them from being “bored,” though more often than not these suggestions involve some passive activity, lifeless kit or a form of external entertainment depicting the fast life. True suggestions for nurturing imagination and creativity are out there, but they’re harder to find.
But then we also hear that kids and parents are doing too much, burning out early, fighting at Little League, running frantically in overbooked schedules, and spending next to no time together due to all the time we spend in transit to the next enrichment activity. We’re told to just slow down and do-it-ourselves in home-based activities.
So which view is the voice of real experts? Well, ultimately we have to look within for answers and strike a balance that works for us. Our first responsibility as parents is to create the world we want at home without wallowing in the disempowering feeling that we are the hapless victims of a misguided society.
Regardless, its always nice when some of our authoritative institutions weigh in with a new (old) view on what we can all do to support family life and the unique time of childhood. That’s why I was so pleased to read yesterday that in a newly released report, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children spend more time in unstructured play, being allowed to explore their environment either outdoors or with toys that truly stimulate creativity. More and more parents are seeking this or are leading the charge in the “less is more” approach, and its great to hear our doctors affirming this revitalized direction for the American family and for kids.
So what is “unstructured play,” and how do we go about nurturing and supporting it? Perhaps some shared definitions can help us.
In the simplest terms unstructured play is open-ended play where the outcome is not about one set answer, or winners and losers, not about following rigid rules or having to get it “right.” But just because these either/ors are not in place doesn’t mean that unstructured play is solely about directionless meandering.
Some “unstructured play” can be defined by creative guidelines that challenge a child to work with certain unvarying elements, such as blocks that are all the same shape. What might a child create of their own free will even when confined to a set of blocks where each is a cube, or each is a rectangle, or they’re not blocks at all, but marbles and no track? The end will still be up to the child, as will be the process, but the shape is one shape, which challenges them to find their creativity or solve a self-generated problem with a simple tool. This is great “preparation for the future,” without us having to tell them so. Its just building with blocks for all the child knows, and the possibilities for creative solutions abound. When one day they’re faced in life with a similar challenge, having nurtured the skill in open-ended play will prove invaluable. But that’s not the point at the moment, at least consciously.
In most cases, however, unstructured play is play that arises exclusively from the child’s own imagination.
I remember when I was a girl I loved to play with my brothers’ die-cast cars, building vast cities and suburbs around the roots of the weeping willow tree out back. I was an engineer, city-planner, architect and cultural guide all at once, never failing to include the theater, concert hall and museum in addition to the sports arena, swimming pool, hospital and police station, each made of mounds of dirt, acorns, sticks, buckets, balls and assorted oddities from the toy chest, of course. It was foolish to try to preserve my metropolitan wonders at sundown when my brothers wouldn’t allow me to keep the cars out overnight, and so I began anew the next day, recalling before I began that traffic really backs up around the fourth tier of roots near the base of the mountain (tree trunk) and so deciding that that perch should become a planetarium today instead, the premier attraction of Willowville. At least until the next day, when it became a perilous canyon overlook for sightseers on a road trip just on the outskirts of Willow Hamlet.
Yes children use toys in unstructured play, the best of which are the least formed; blocks, colored shapes, silk fabrics. But they also use other basics, like cars, dolls, doll houses, balls, tea sets, art supplies, building sets with fittings and other starter elements that offer open-ended results.Instead of the rush of three different after-school activities four times a week and another order of greasy to-go food, coming home to make a meal (even a quick-fix one,) while the kids go outside or hit the basement or drag their blocks onto the kitchen floor, can make for nice, seemingly endless afternoons, where the sun slowly slips down as house and hearth warm up with the sound of play and prattle, going nowhere and everywhere at once. That’s unstructured play, and its rich in content, ripe with possibility for the whole family and, perhaps most important, its pleasant, nice, sweet. It might even be what they really mean when they talk about the “good life.”
I’ll talk more about nurturing unstructured play tomorrow, as well as some of the challenges we face in doing so.
